Waiting for duty, a trio of Rio Grande SD40T-2 Tunnel Motors bask in the summer sun in the engine facility at Helper, Utah, on August 7, 1996.

It’s a mostly cloudy early afternoon in the desert country of Utah on February 4, 2003, as a fortuitous sliver of sun illuminates a quartet of Rio Grande Tunnel Motors on Union Pacific’s LJP45... (more)

Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range EMD SD38AC No. 206 leads a taconite ore train through Fairbanks, Minnesota, on the morning of September 30, 1989. Only fifteen SD38AC locomotives were built by EMD—s... (more)

By February 2006, Rio Grande EMD SD40T-2 No. 5371 was the last Denver & Rio Grande Western locomotive on the Union Pacific system in its original unpatched paint and road number. Slumbering next t... (more)

If a railroad knew something about operating a railroad through the mountains, not around them, it was certainly the Rio Grande. On a railroad riddled with grades and tunnels, it took a page from ... (more)

WC day one
On October 11, 1987, the first Wisconsin Central freight train to climb Byron Hill out of Shops Yard at North Fond du Lac, approaches the top of the grade at Byron, Wisconsin... (more)

Amazon containers stacked two high extend almost as far as you can see on an eastbound BNSF train cruising along the Clark Fork between Heron and Noxon, Montana, on the afternoon of June 30, 2021.... (more)

The Rocky Mountaineer tour train curves eastbound along the Colorado River Road west of Bond, Colorado, on November 16, 2021.

A bull of the bovine persuasion is about to cross Echeta Road as a pair of Burlington Northern EMD SD40-2s hustle an eastbound Z train past milepost 627 through Croton, Wyoming, on the morning of ... (more)

Montana Rail Link EMD F45 No. 392 pauses for a portrait at Laurel, Montana, on October 11, 2005. F45 cowl locomotives have a design that likely reducing air resistance, but more importantly, it do... (more)

On the morning of June 16, 2014, a westbound BNSF manifest freight curves its way along the Missouri River in scenic Lombard Canyon between Lombard and Toston, Montana.

An eastbound Wisconsin & Southern passenger train passes the wye at Mazomanie, Wisconsin, while traveling the former Milwaukee Road line from Prairie du Chien to Madison on May 19, 1996.

In early 1971, EMD began offering the option of an AR10 alternator in place of standard D32 direct-current generator in GP38 and SD38 models, with these locomotives designated as GP38AC and SD38AC... (more)

Kansas City Southern MP15DC Nos. 4363 and 4365 pull two boxcars by the power plant approaching Oak Street on KCS’s River Quay Spur at Kansas City, Missouri, on September 16, 1990. KCS bought fou... (more)

Brand new Union Pacific EMD SD60M Nos. 6194 and 6205 are in the final stages of assembly as they are “trucked” with an overhead crane specially for visitors during an open house at the sprawli... (more)